To the down voters…who would you exclude from this list and why? All were powerful men who took unfair sexual advantage of their female subordinates and treated their marriage vows as disposable when it suited their libidos. That’s all I see. What do you see that is different?

So…we believe that he was with Monica and Gennifer because we take him at his word that while married to Hillary, he had sexual relations with both women, even though Monica was his employee BUT we think that Juanita, Paula, and Kathleen were lying when they claimed he sexually assaulted them? Is this the line we are going to take as Democrats when we attack Weinstein and his treatment of women?

No wonder we lose elections. No wonder why Trump is in the White House.

The thing with Clinton is while he’s not a saint, the allegations against him run the gambit from not proven to none of our business. So much of what was said against him was unseemly promoted by his enemies that by the time Juanita Broderick accused him of rape all I could think was why not? He by that time had been accused of all manner of things including drug running and murder that we might as well add rape to the list just ’cause. Plus we don’t have Clinton bragging about it on tape.

There is no denying that Clinton treated women as object for his personal pleasure. Your efforts to excuse him explain how men like Weinstein are able to pull it off for years. They know people around them, who need them, will “see nothing” or rationalize it and say nothing.

I suppose I have to repeat this comment every time the subject comes up. The Red Six paid off the children who were raped by their employee on team property. The team has since then never been held fully accountable.
Nick Cafardo wrote the cover story for the rapist”s resignation from the team. As a result the rapist spent several years at large,in his new condo near a high school with a high proportion of young black males,his preferred targets.
Cafardo still works for the Globe and is on TV all the time.

Could clarify this? I know about the Red Sox molester guy, but I don’t understand what you Nick Cafardo had to do with it and nothing is coming up on google. Are you saying Cafardo wrote a story that helped this guys get away with it longer? Please elaborate

Thanks for asking. Cafardo was covering the Red Sox in Anaheim on August 25, 1991, when a man held up a sign behind the Red Sox dugout “Donald Fitzpatrick Sexually Assaulted Me.”.
. I don’t know who saw the sign, but certainly a lot of people did.. Yet nobody from the always large media contingent covering the team mentioned the sign.
Either there was an effective conspiracy of silence to keep the story from the media, or there were members of the media who participated in the cover up.
I single out Cafardo because he wrote a very strange little story which was published September 7, 1991. “:Team has instant Recall” in which Fitzpatrick is described as just sort of wandering away from his job. for no apparent reason. It is the type of story that most likely came from someone in the Red Sox organization, which as a matter of record knew exactly why Fitzpatrick left.
If I was a reporter and someone gave me something to write that provided cover for a sexual predator, I would be pretty mad. At the very least Cafardo owes his readers an explanation of how he came to write this story..
It was ten years before any of this was made public. Bob Hohler and Mac Daniel wrote the story for the Globe, which ran November 10, 2001.. in the meantime the Red Sox had paid $100,000 to the man who held up the sign. (I wonder if there was a non-disclosure agreement?)
Both these stories are available on the Boston Globe archives. The Hohler/Daniel story is notable for how diligently the writers raise doubts about the accusers. My recollection is that subsequently Hohler did a series which described Fitzpatrick’s crimes in graphic detail. and left no doubt that the accusations were true.
The Red Sox position today is that the matter is closed because the settled the cases and paid the victims, and that there is nothing further to discuss. That argument doesn’t even work in Hollywood anymore. Why should we let the Red Sox get away with it?

…
The committee’s investigation was touched off a year ago by the allegations by a former congressional page, Leroy Williams, of alleged homosexual misconduct involving House members and pages during 1981 and 1982. Williams later confessed that he had made up his story, but further investigation of clues dating back 10 years turned up evidence of misconduct by Crane and Studds.…
In the case of [Reps. Daniel B. Crane (R-Ill.)], the female page told investigators she met him through a male page she once dated. The page testified she carried a six-pack of Heineken beer to Crane’s office one spring evening in 1980, to pay off a friendly wager. Later, they went to his apartment and slept together.

The page said she had sex with Crane on three or four other occasions. “It was my decision just as much as it was his,” she testified.

Crane’s press secretary, William Mencarow, said, “If they required the resignation of all congressmen who have slept with young ladies you wouldn’t have a Congress.”…
Studds invited the page to travel abroad with him during the August recess and the page agreed. According to the page’s testimony, they engaged in sexual activity every two or three days during the trip.

The page said that he had been “flattered and excited” by the attention that Studds paid him, and never felt intimidated.

“Gerry Studds was an intelligent, witty, gentle man with I think a high level of insecurity,” the page testified. “He did nothing to me which I would consider destructive or painful. In another time, in another society, the action would be acceptable perhaps even laudable.”

In the case of Mr. Studds, the man he had the affair with said he was “flattered and excited” and “never felt intimidated”.

So we are talking about something that:
– Happened more than thirty years ago
– The other party was “flattered and excited” about
– The voters didn’t care about (Mr. Studds was re-elected multiple times)

Some of us see a difference between what Gerry Studds did and situations where victims were drugged (Mr. Cosby), coerced (all of the Fox News personalities) and so on. Some of us do not.

I think this entire thread is more meaningless trolling, and I regret commenting on it at all.

Not only a 17 year old, Tom, but a 17 year old who was under his authority, where the Congressman assumes the role of parent in place of the page’s own parents. And a 17 year old who had been drinking at Studd’s apartment for hours before the sex took place.
Your suggestion that there was nothing wrong because the victim reported being “flattered and excited” is just mind-boggling. Haven’t you been reading about Harvey Weinstein? Many of his victims were too intimidated to complain, and even on occasion told Weinstein that they were flattered by his attentions. That doesn’t change for a second the victimization of these women by a powerful male over a powerless subordinate. And if you can explain the difference between “something that has been going on for years” and “something that happened a long time ago” I’d like to hear the explanation.

It was more than thirty years ago, Bob. I didn’t say there was “nothing wrong”. I find it distasteful as well.

There is clear evidence that Mr Weinstein’s victims were intimidated, threatened, coerced, forced to remain silent about settlements, and so on. There is ZERO evidence of anything comparable in the 1983 episode with Mr. Studds.

If we exclude from public service every public servant whose behavior any of us find distasteful, we’d have no public servants left.

I have no issue with setting standards today. I take issue with the heavy-handed approach of the thread-starter. I take issue with any approach that discounts or refuses to take into account the feelings (never mind testimony) of the victim.

I guess you’re one of those who see no difference between Gerry Studds and Harvey Weinstein. I am not.

I’ll post separately on the possible efforts by Harvey Weinstein to silence accusers. However the most common reason for the accusers not to come forward is the stigma involved. For the women that were Weinstein’s victims, the stigma is pretty strong. But for a high school junior who is subjected to an assault by Studds in 1973, the stigma was, and still may be, enormous. I’m not sure, but I don’t think he has ever revealed his identity publicly.

Of course I do. How he felt is completely subjective. He had every reason not to put himself in the middle of a scandal which would inevitably put his own sexuality into the spotlight. He had every reason not to put himself into conflict with a powerful and popular congressman. And that’s at a minimum. Who knows what the victim’s career was. If it had anything to do with politics, it would be as dead as the careers of any of the actresses who Harvey Weinstein groped. (some of whom signed affidavits “under oath” as part of their non disclosure settlements.).
It’s tough for these victims to come forward. Part of the reason is that there are always people like you, Tom, who are there to make excuses for the perpetrator because they agree with his politics, or because they like his art, or because he was a good cardinal, or because they like something else about him.
Studds belongs on that list . If effective, devoted service to progressive causes were a good excuse, then he wouldn’t belong. But that’s not how it works.

It doesn’t sound as though you have much experience with the courts, especially probate court. The intern would not have been allowed to testify if his testimony was going to be ignored. There is no “of course” involved at all.

No, it is YOU who refuse to listen to the “victim”.

“Who knows what the victim’s career was”. Exactly. You don’t know, and I don’t know. Neither of us know the identity of the intern, who has had more than thirty years to come forward. That’s one HUGE difference between this situation and Mr. Weinstein, Mr. Cosby, Mr. Ailes, or the others.

I remind you that the person you refuse to listen to was 27 years old when he testified in court. He was no juvenile, he had ample opportunity to reflect on what had happened. He has had ample opportunity since, and has chosen to remain silent.

Tell me, sir, do you also reject the testimony of clergy sex abuse victims who DO testify openly and at great cost to themselves about what was done to them? Do you dismiss the testimony of the many victims of who HAVE been abused? It sounds as if you listen to the testimony of witnesses who agree with your bias and “of course” dismiss the testimony of those who don’t.

I hope you’re never on any jury.

You assume the worst, I think that “innocent until proven guilty” is another important foundation stone of American culture.

The only thing we do know is what the intern said, under oath. I think you discount that because it demolishes the case you’re trying to make.

I totally reject your accusation that I am “there to make excuses for the perpetrator because they agree with his politics, or because they like his art, or because he was a good cardinal, or because they like something else about him.”

It is not “making excuses” to demand SOME evidence to support your contention. You have NO evidence, because there isn’t any.

Probate Court? What the hell are you talking about?
What I wrote about Studds is based upon what is on the record. 1. Studds’s position as a powerful adult who has quasi-parental authority over a 17 year old.
2. The fact that he got the 17 year old drunk before he had sex with him.
Your defense of Studds is the classic rapist’s defense:
“Why didn’t he report it right away?”
“And anyway he liked it. He said he was flattered and excited.”

Probate Court is a place where the testimony of 17 year olds is taken very seriously. You “of course” dismiss such testimony. In this case, the intern was 27 when on the stand. The intern would have been listened to at 17, and most certainly was listened to at 27.

Your contempt for that intern is palpable and flies in the face of your alleged concern.

Where did I say “why didn’t he report it right away”? It is not an accused rapist saying “he liked it”, it was the participant himself.

Like it or not, the intern gave his consent. The intern was old enough (17) to do so in Massachusetts. So the episode was consensual. Whatever it was, it was not rape.

There is a very serious question about the age difference between the individuals involved. The role of Mr. Studds as a “quasi-parental authority” was certainly an issue — that issue was the center of the controversy. Both issues were widely publicized and widely discussed. All parties involved (except, of course, you) resolved this more than thirty years ago. You’re just flaming.

If you think a candidate for some office is an abuser, by all means share you concern. Please stop trashing figures from the past, especially the dead who cannot defend themselves.

Gerry Studds served long and gloriously, during a time when being openly gay was a serious barrier to public acceptance. Your gratuitous attacks on him are repulsive.

From the Boston Globe archives, July 15, 1983: “The page involved in the [Gerry E. Studds] case testified that he is not homosexual and had not had a homosexual affair before the one with Studds. . . .According to the committee report, the former page involved with Studds testified that he was 17 during the time he had a sexual relationship with Studds, though the relationship may have begun when the page was 16. The two met at a restaurant in May or June 1973, and according to the page’s testimony, Studds invited the page to the congressman’s home in Georgetown.”
Here is an excerpt from the ex-page’s testimony.(Also in the Globe Archives, same date.) ” In fact, I thought that he provided me with one of the more wonderful experiences of my life, if we exclude the instances of sexual experience which I was somewhat uncomfortable with.”

There’s more, but you get the idea. Studds used the same MO unsuccessfully with another page. Both times he illegally served alcohol to the pages, then propositioned them.
I don’t know where you got the idea that anyone wants to take the late Congressman to Probate court. All I’m saying is that if there is a list of powerful men who where sexual abusers, he belongs on it..

Don’t change the subject. Nobody here is going to make a complete list of everyone who has ever abused anyone. You are trying to distract people from your losing argument. Even though you misled everyone about whether the victim was excited or uncomfortable about his sexual encounter with Studds, and even though you apparently never consulted the testimony you accused me of ignoring,what is important is not how he felt, but what Studds did. That’s why he belongs on the list. And as long as there are still apologists around, it’s still worth mentioning.

Ah. Sounds like a perhaps struck a nerve with my question about Mr. Crane.

Perhaps a bit of homophobia? Perhaps young women don’t matter as much to you as young men? Funny how you reacted to the episode involving Mr. Studds so strongly that you still need to talk about it more than thirty years later, while Mr. Cane elicited no such emotion.

The victims of Mr. Cosby were not “… somewhat uncomfortable with ” his actions. The testimony is available here, each of us welcome to interpret it as they choose.

Sounds like an ad hominem attack to me. Here’s what one of our commenters has to say about ad hominem attacks– right on this thread.
“1. Pound the facts
2. When that fails, pound the witness
3. When that fails, pound the table
His arguments are ad hominem because that’s all he’s got.”

You said yourself that you completely discounted the intern’s testimony. That’s not ad hominem.

Then I’ve shown that you focused on only Mr. Studds and ignored Mr. Crane, even though both were chastised at the same time by the same body for the same thing.

I called out the inconsistency in that, and you got hot. I shared my reaction to that inconsistency. That’s a criticism, yes.

An ad hominem would if I said, for example, “Gerry Studs should not be on the list because bob-gardner is homophic”. I didn’t said that.

Gerry Studds made your list after having a homosexual affair with a male intern. Dan Crane did not make your list, even though he had a heterosexual affair with a female intern. Gerry Studds was introduced by you, because even you admit that Barney Frank (another gay man) was never even accused of harassment.

The only difference between Mr. Studds and Mr. Crane is the gender of the intern. It is not ad hominem to note that contradiction. The only relevant similarity between Mr. Frank and Mr. Studds is their gender preference. It is not ad hominem to note that similarity.

The context of the quote you’ve offered is an accurate observation that JTM has been following me around this site for well over a year now, frequently peppering whatever comment I make with something along the lines of “SomervilleTom is wrong because he’s a Wall Street sellout”. That is a classic ad hominem attack.

I haven’t said that your argument is wrong because you’re homophobic — that would be ad hominem. I’ve said your argument is wrong because it’s inconsistent.

I do suspect that the intensity of your response has nothing to do with sexual abusers and their victims. You join JTM in that.

Crane and Studds belong in the same list, of course. They both got the same punishment from congress. I assume that before you brought Crane’s name up, you checked to see if Crane’s victim felt flattered by Crane’s attention, or a little uncomfortable or worse. Because you think that makes a big difference.
I have a lot of unattractive traits and maybe homophobia is one of them. Since you admit that calling me homophobic has nothing to do with my arguments your name calling would appear to be a completely gratuitous.
I appeal to whoever is currently moderating this site to review this thread and to determine whether Tom has violated the BMG rules about gratuitous, ad hominem attacks. EB3 was suspended for less.

In my view, the very concept of this list itself is nonsense. Lists like this hearken back to Joseph McCarthy and his infamous lists. Neither Mr. Crane nor Mr. Studds have any relevance to anything happening today.

I didn’t introduce Gerry Studds to this thread. I didn’t tie him to Barney Frank. I didn’t omit Mr. Crane from this absurd list.

I cited the testimony of the page Mr. Crane had an affair with, I even put it in bold in my quote from the Washington Post. Here it is, again, for your convenience:“It was my decision just as much as it was his,” she testified

She did not accuse Mr. Crane of assault. You demean her, just as JTM demeans Ms. Lewinsky, by conflating her with the victims of Mr. Cosby, Mr. Weinstein, or Mr. Ailes.

You know they’re different, and so do I.

The editors of this site have no problem with one participant calling me a “wall street sellout” for an eternity. Presumably you have no problem with your assertion that I offered “the classic rapist’s defense” (even though, as I pointed out, I said nothing of the kind).

I am, frankly, sick to death of bullshit like your smear of Gerry Studds or JTM’s smears of Bill Clinton. Each of you is big and tough when you attack somebody (especially somebody whose long dead and buried), and then you cry like a baby when somebody pushes back.

So long as we’re offering guidance to the moderators, mine is this: Delete this diary in its entirety. The entire diary and its commentary is nothing but a thinly-disguised vehicle for trashing Bill Clinton, which you have broadened to a similarly repugnant attack on Gerry Studds. At least Mark Bail was being sarcastic when he mentioned Barney Frank — you clearly missed the sarcasm.

In rereading the above, I realize that I inverted my intended meaning in my fifth paragraph. The paragraph just after the bolded quote should read:

She did not accuse Mr. Crane of assault. You demean the victims of Mr. Cosby, Mr. Weinstein, or Mr. Ailes by conflating them with her, just as JTM demeans those victims by conflating them with Ms. Lewinsky.

In both cases it is the facts that accuse Crane and Studds of assault. Both men drank with minors who were too young to drink legally, then had sex with them. In Crane’s case the young woman apparently brought the beer. In Studds’s case (or actually cases, since he tried this with three different pages) he provided the liquor after bringing the pages to his apartment.
Tom’s crocodile tears about smearing a dead person about something that happened a long time ago are clearly disingenuous, to put it mildly. Under this standard, we would never get to rename Yawkey Way, or even tear down confederate statues.
What has been lost in all these rants is the original point of John T May’s post. As I understand it, he is saying that we can either use these scandals as clubs to whack our political adversaries, or we can treat sexual abuse something that has real victims, and act accordingly. His list not very good but his main point is unassailable.

The original “point” of JTM’s post was to smear Bill Clinton by repeating the bold-faced lie that he has ever done anything like what the other names on the list did.

If there is a “Studd’s way” somewhere, and you want to start a movement to rename it, by all means go for it. That’s not what JTM was doing here. I know of no statues to Mr. Studds.

His list, in fact, SUCKS. The list that spurred your commentary was a sarcastic post that included Barney Frank. Even YOU agree that Barney Frank never abused anybody.

You chose to replace Mr. Frank’s name with Gerry Studds. That itself reeks of gay-bashing whether or not you want to admit it.

Neither Mr. Crane nor Mr. Studds was ever accused of assault. They were censured by a Republican congress. No more, no less. You ignored Mr. Crane, even though he was censured in the same congressional action, featured in the same articles, and highlighted here.

It is apparent that your motivation had everything to do with your animosity towards Mr. Studds, and nothing to do with victims of sexual abuse.

Not pure as the driven snow Tom, just a stand up guy like Obama, or Biden. It’s not that difficult . You insist on making excuses for some.

You remind me of a time when I was a hockey fan and there was an “enforcer” on another team that all the fans of my team hated. He was a dirty player, a real scum bag….but when we traded for him to get into the playoffs, suddenly he was “our guy” and many fans cheered as he bloodied the other team’s player.

Knock it off! Nobody approves this behavior as a positive good. In 1884 the presidential race was between James Blaine, reputedly an upright devoted family, but as corrupt as they get and Grover Cleveland who fought political corruption but fathered a child out of wedlock. Which do you think is more appropriate for the presidency?

The idea that we have to account for whatever sins Bill Clinton was responsible for is patently ridiculous. Ancient freakin’ history.

Sexual predators and all-around perverts know no partisan boundaries.

Power doesn’t necessarily corrupt, but it certainly allows the powerful the opportunity to abuse it. Things change as power shifts as it has against people like Cosby and Weinstein. They are now ostracized.

Suggesting, as John does, that we can somehow ostracize Bill Clinton is silly. We can disapprove, but there is no way to ostracize anyone people don’t want to ostracize.

“The party” is not responsible for any of their personal failings. In fact, many of those named did suffer the consequences and were in fact criticized by fellow partisans for their behavior. We also must remember to separate the consensual from the non-consensual and frankly the former really isn’t for us to discuss.

There is, as near as nevermind, no discernible difference between Roger Ailes and Harvey Weinstein. Two grossly overweight media moguls who used their power to force themselves upon much younger women, aided and abetted by their underlings for many years and who paid fantastic sums to the women to keep them quiet.

Yet, when Ailes was, erm… exposed… he was, more or less, allowed to slink away. Disgraced, yes… but in a singular fashion: no greater societal implication was seen nor any looked for… the notion that his actions would reflect something wider than his own wide self, well…. move along, nothing to see here…

Not so with Weinstein. Now, the fast accreting narrative goes, we must put on sackcloth and ashes and repent of Bill Clinton. Fascinating…

Oh, Tom… you’re so naive… (just kidding…) . It’s actually worse than conflation…. They have to make Clinton the goat, that’s their only strategy: take their opponents strength and try to paint it as a weakness. Two things:

First: Clinton was the golden-tongued seducer of equals for whom women felt attracted : he didn’t have to wield any power over them, to get a fake approximation of attraction, he just had real and actual charm. Guys who have to coerce women into sex absolutely HATE guys who don’t.

Secondly: and this is the key, everything about his life screamed the one simple fact “women are equal.” He went and entered a real partnership of a marriage, “allowing” his wife to work outside the home (as a lawyer, of all things), and when he became POTUS elevated strong women (first Hillary, then Janet Reno, then Madeleine Albright, and the notorious RBG) to positions of real and actual power. You have no idea how mad that still makes them… I mean we are thinking about mouth breathing troglodytes for whom the phrase ‘barefoot and pregnant’ is the base essence of their nostalgia…

“Young Monica” was a consenting adult. She initiated the affair. She told her friends before coming to Washington that she wanted to “earn [her] presidential kneepads”. Monica Lewinsky never accused Mr. Clinton of harassment.

The only people who betrayed, abused, and coerced Monica Lewinsky were Linda Tripp (her “friend”), Ken Starr, and the GOP vultures you were supporting at the time.

John, lying is wrong. You are lying about Bill Clinton. Over and over.

When you show any evidence AT ALL that you’ve actually LISTENED to, for example, Monica Lewinsky then perhaps we can revisit your complaint about “treating women as objects”.

Your hostility towards Bill Clinton has everything to do with your own biases and prejudices, and nothing AT ALL to do with how anybody treats women in general or Monica Lewinsky in particular.

I’ll tell you what your animosity towards Mr. Clinton and Ms. Lewinsky sounds like to me (since I don’t know anything about you). It sounds like simple jealousy. It sounds likes it sticks in your craw that women, including Ms. Lewinsky, wanted to do the nasty with Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton got something from Ms. Lewinsky, freely offered, and it sounds like you can’t handle that simple fact.

From your commentary here, your complaint about “treating women as objects” very much like a projection.

Telling the truth about Bill Clinton is not lying. He was a married man. He used the power of his position to take sexual advantage of women.

That was wrong.

That’s also part of the reason his wife lost the election to Trump who also used the power of his position to take sexual advantage of women.

Why do you defend one and not the other? Any woman should have known that men like Clinton and Trump and Weinstein were the type to “grab them in the …” so I guess those women had it coming, or as you explain with Monica, had planned the entire affair!

Except that he didn’t “Use the power of his position to take sexual advantage of women”.

That’s one lie that you repeat over and over. It’s a lie.

His affair with Ms. Lewinsky was relevant to Ms. Clinton only in the mind of sexist boors who cannot or will not appraise Ms. Clinton on her own merits.

You’re the one trying to jam people in types, not me. Monica Lewinsky was a consenting adult who has NEVER accused Bill Clinton of harassing her.

That’s a second lie that you relentlessly repeat.

Your response here exemplifies what I mean — you flatly refuse to pay attention at all to Ms. Lewinsky herself. You are so attached to your own animosity towards Bill Clinton that you lie about the facts.

I mean, when Shirley McClain was asked why she supported a womanizer over ” Family Values ” moralizer, Richard Nixon, in 1960, she famously replied : ” I’d rather have a President who screwed a woman than one who screwed his country.” 🙂

was one of a series of actions taken by Bill Clinton against women. You want to ignore the others. I want to see the man for who he is in total.

I think you’re jealous of Mr. Clinton. I really do.

What’s there to envy about the man? I see nothing in his record that I would be proud of, from his relentless attacks against the working class, his coddling of the wealthy class, and his repulsive treatment of women.

You see “a series of actions taken by Bill Clinton against women”. I see at least one woman (Monica Lewinsky) who wanted to have an affair with Mr. Clinton. I think it is jealousy, not envy, that results.

I think your list is nothing but an excuse for you to trash Mr. Clinton yet again.

Tom. I just do not side with men like Clinton who treat women poorly. As with your willingness to side with Wall Street, your pragmatic to “elect Democrats” no matter what, principles be damned, this is just part of the same.